u/fuckthefalconsdotcom

I dunno if any of you can relate but when I travel and go on benders, my fucking kit is dialed in. You can blindfold me and spin me around and push me towards my 3 bags I carry and I can hand you a lighter, some weed, a temu puppet, 2 knives, a flask, a bigger plastic flask, an extra tooth brush in the tactical bag so I don't need to get the big bag to brush my teeth.

Chargers? Look at my chargers, I got battery packs to keep myself charged while stumbling around cities. I got rooms of this shit.

Carabiners, oh yes, everything is connected beautifully. When I left San Francisco I ordered 2 boxes of wine and a bottle of johnny walker red from Instacart delivered to the hostel. Best idea ever, currently drinking the scotch looking at the gray miserable Seattle weather listening to Rooster by Alice In Chains. Cliche as fuck but it came up on my Seattle playlist and it's hitting right.

One thing I wish I had thought of was bringing some shorts for the hostel showers. Like putting directly on the pants after a gross hostel shower isn't great. I did bring some flip flops for the shower which have been money.

Also, the non scented wet wipes are 100% add to cart. I live the bidet life in New Orleans so kind always feel not as clean as I want and these help. Also there is nothing worse than an amtrak train bathroom. I hang out at dive bars 90% of my waking life and Amtrak train bathrooms are worse.

Sleeping mask is a must along with ear plugs. You need several pairs of ear plugs to sleep properly while traveling. I couldn't find my sleep mask when I got to the Seattle hostel and was like fuck. Found it, didn't put it in the right pocket. It's fine, all good.

When drinking on the train you want to bring yourself a box of wine and put it in stealth mode since it's okay to drink on the train unless you bought it there but fuck you, this is still America.

Pour that wine in a yeti cup with a top and a plastic straw so you're not spilling it all over as the train rocks back and forth. Also a yeti cup with a top that fully closes is good but it never closes "enough" so get used to luggage smelling like wine.

Preparing for this fucking amtrak bender I bought 4 pairs of black cargo pants and packed a bunch of hoodies. By the time I get back to New Orleans I want to throw all of these clothes in the lake or do laundry. This is the longest I've gone without wearing a hawaiian shirt and it feels weird. I really forget that this beautiful country has seasons.

I've been sitting in the hostel on the chromebook working all morning. Going to do my last phone call and go explore the surrounding area. Time is speeding by super fast which I kinda hate. I love the west coast, nice people. Fuck New Orleans, I don't want to go back to that hell hole full of good ole boy culture. Whatever, got a mortgage so leaving isn't easy. Eventually the eagle has to land.

I know a lot about Scientology, like more than someone who isn't a member of the church should know. I walked by the church earlier in my trip and was like "oh, they offer a free tour, we need to go check that out". The weed out here gets on top of me way faster then the shitty dirt weed I have in New Orleans.

I walk past the heavily armed security guard like "oh I believe, hello fellow Scientologist" with the skateboard over my shoulder. There was a woman wearing a vest sitting at the receptionist desk and I start telling her how beautiful it is, I mean, it's an impressive building.

I ended up hanging out and talking with her for about half an hour before I was like "I need to get the fuck out of here, I'm starting to freak out".

The weird thing is like...I work in sales, I know about sales work and their sales was soft that I started to kinda get sucked in. They had a list of available jobs at the church and I was like "I can do like pretty much all of these jobs, do I get a place to live, how does this work?".

The thing is tho, they don't drink. If I'm going to join a religion I need there to be booze or mushrooms or orgies. I started thinking like "okay I join the church and give them my life savings" which is like...not much. Now I'm in, I got a new career. Maybe one Sunday I'm at church and I meet a fucking smoking Scientologist woman. Maybe has some piercings and visible tattoos, wearing black. Goth Scientologist chick, let's go.

Once these thoughts started to enter my head I was like "okay I need to go to a bar and stop these intrusive thoughts".

I was making small talk with the people at the bar and they were like "why the fuck did you do that?" and I didn't really have an answer. It was fucking crazy tho. Next time I'm in Washington D.C. I want to go visit their main church, bet that's intense.

Off to Seattle to keep this bender going. I've been feeling really rough, I've been eating plenty which is good but the hills are killing me here in San Francisco. Checking in the hostel tomorrow night and going to just chill and drink in their lobby for a day and rest before I go out adventuring there.

After that it's Minneapolis and Milwaukee and Chicago and back to my jail cell in New Orleans. I'm really feeling this abuse, not as young as I used to be. Stop that loser talk, drink moar wine, head to Emeryville. I saved one last joint to smoke outside the train station but almost want to save it for when I get to Seattle...

I went really hard yesterday, like I ate multiple meals but started early and kept going despite desperately needing sleep. I ate an orange for breakfast and had half a cup of coffee and felt like...really off, like legit worried my body is just going to fail from abuse.

There's a little corner store near my hostel and I rolled in there and got a giant can of PBR. Knowing for a fact it's going to immediately change how horrible I feel. I get to the counter, oh it's a extra 75 cents if you use a card. I love how that's becoming a new thing, just passing that bullshit on to the consumer. I have cash left over from last night and give her a $5 and she gives me change.

San Francisco is a pretty laid place but they have open container laws so I ask for a brown paper bag. "oh that's 25 cents extra".

I didn't sigh, didn't say anything, reached in my pocket and gave her a fucking quarter for a brown paper bag. As I've aged, I sometimes get less mad in situations where it's like, shame on me. I should have packed a little camping bottle, could have bought my beer, poured it in and went about my way in stealth mode.

I saved the paper bag after I finished the PBR as a souvenir and a soft reminder that capitalism is always waiting to fuck you. Part of me wants to go there tomorrow for another morning beer and say "oh I don't need the paper bag, still got the one from yesterday" but even that kind of shit is bad karma.

Stroll to the Fisherman's Wharf drinking my beer. I finish it and decide I should smoke one of the joints I bought at the weed store. That was like 2 doors down to the "mushroom church" where you have to sign papers and they give you a card. They don't sell you mushrooms, you just donate to the church. I got a membership card and everything.

The mushroom church has a giant menu, like 5 double sided pages of different strains. I started talking to the...person who gives them to you after you donate. She asked what I wanted to "do" with the mushrooms and I said I want to eat some and go get a tour of the Scientology church that's down the street.

She doesn't speak, you can see the gears turning and eventually said "You just shouldn't do that, there's a nice park nearby". Turns out they don't take debit cards so I have to go back tomorrow after I hit an ATM.

Anyway, I get the Fisherman's Wharf today and I really wanted to tour that WW2 submarine. It's not really a tour, you pay to get in and listen to a guided tour on your phone. The QR card failed and I was like fuck it, I'm just going in. It's Thursday at like 1pm so there is zero people taking the tour.

I forced myself to eat before, got a National's burger, it was pretty good. It also allowed me to get some coke in a cup which was a great mixer for my jack daniels. I normally drink stuff neat but I have s soft spot for jack and coke and I think my blood sugar was crashing.

Anyway, I finish the pint of jack daniels and coke and pay to go on the tour. I am so broke and a huge history buff so I was like "i'm going to hangout in this submarine for as much time as possible."

So on submarines, they have those hatches that close with the little wheel to keep the whole thing from flooding. In movies you see people sprinting down the submarine and grabbing the top of the hatch and throwing yourself into the next compartment before the water pressure builds up and floods that compartment.

I spent at least 15 minutes running from one point of the submarine to another part pretending I was running from flood waters. I obviously could have hurt myself but god damn was that fun.

Walked back to the hostel, feeling super rough. I need to sleep well tonight, like I'm pretty used to feeling "rough" but the shaking was serious, even after eating that giant burger. The whiskey and coke helped significantly.

Next to the submarine they have this giant arcade museum but all the games are playable. It was wild, kinda wish I had been on mushrooms for it. Played 2 dollars worth of an antique claw game, won a plastic duck with a mowhawk and a little car.

I'm saving karaoke for tomorrow night but still feel like I should go out a little more.